


Satellites

by sigarilyo (descartes)



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/sigarilyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David Cook is a pretty handsy kind of guy. David Archuleta? Not so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Satellites

**Author's Note:**

> Something I started in June, and it is finally done :0 Thank you to [](http://ulop.livejournal.com/profile)[**ulop**](http://ulop.livejournal.com/), who patiently listened to me whining about not having an ending and how much prepositions suck for _days_ and gave me a summary that I am not ashamed of. [](http://boomingvoice.livejournal.com/profile)[**boomingvoice**](http://boomingvoice.livejournal.com/) and [](http://snackbreak.livejournal.com/profile)[**snackbreak**](http://snackbreak.livejournal.com/) are awesome betas who made this sparkle -- thank you! Also: to everybody who commented on the [ways david archuleta failed popular musicians](http://sigarilyo.livejournal.com/90559.html) wip snippet and encouraged me! You guys rock ♥

People were always _touching_ him.

David wasn't a stranger to close contact. He got hugged and held his family all the time, and that was okay. Jazzy, particularly, used to like piggyback rides around the entire house; he never complained when she tugged too hard on his bangs or squealed loudly in his ear. His friends back in Murray often smacked him when he drifted off in the middle of conversations (oops, his bad) and that was okay too.

Los Angeles was different. Here, he felt like he was giving off signals — whistle-sharp and trilling, a broken A sharp played repeatedly — that made people ignore important concepts like _privacy_ and _personal space_.

The cold studios were only part of the reason why he told the stylists he didn't mind wearing jackets and long-sleeved shirts. It didn't really look good, cringing away from Ryan Seacrest while he was saying your numbers to millions of viewers, and he found Ryan's hands easier to endure when there were layers and layers of fabric between them and his skin.

He'd gotten comfortable with Chikezie ruffling his hair while he did his homework in their apartment, Brooke's curls tickling his chin in the quiet moments between photo shoots, the way Carly sometimes swept him into her arms and shook him when she got excited about something. He even learned to be smooth (sort of) when moving away from anyone intent on pinching his cheeks.

(He really wished his growth spurt would happen already. It was bad enough that people pretended to like his voice because he was little, but it was worse when they treated him like a baby because of it. He didn't mean to cry during Alexandréa's song, but the song's message had gotten to him and he suddenly realized, gosh, he'd be the only one still in school, the youngest and now friendless. Then the girls fussed over him backstage, especially Alexandréa, who was supposed to be the sad one, the one everyone should be comforting because she was the one leaving. Even his brother called to ask if he was fine, which was embarrassing when all he wanted to know was if Daniel had fed his fish yet.)

But he didn't think he could ever get used to David Cook folding into himself - and by extension, into David - whenever David said something that he didn't really think was funny at all.

Cook was _different_. In the beginning, David didn't talk to him much, because Cook tossed around words that David was sure weren't even in the SATs and he was like a dumb, uncool dork next to the guy. David's girlfriends were fascinated with him; of course we voted for you, they assured David, but then their questions would be about Cook's eyeliner or Cook's hairstyle and, yeah, it was weird when they called him Archie just because he told them that was what Cook called him.

But David never got annoyed by Cook's vocabulary or how his friends thought he was an ATM for David Cook trivia, because he himself was fascinated with Cook. Cook, who held his guitar and played in a way that not even David on Expert mode in Guitar Hero could ever hope to emulate. Who had been a bartender before Idol happened, and mixed drinks with exotic names and, David imagined, flirted with women who left napkins with kiss marks and their phone numbers tucked under coasters. Who had a cool, serious, untouchable way about him that disappeared instantly when there was something funny that caught his attention.

When he laughed, Cook would fall over David like a heavy, vibrating blanket, if the blanket owned a battered leather jacket and did covers of songs that people liked enough to embed on their Myspace. He'd be so close his beard scraped David's cheek and David could tell how much breath spray he had used and what flavor it was.

The strange thing was that David didn't move or flinch or try to get away every time it happened, not even when it first did. He let his body prop up Cook's, smiling at the top of Cook's head and vaguely noting the low C of his laugh, humming a higher counterpoint to it under his breath. Because Cook sometimes looked tired and a little sad from long, hushed phone conversations from home and visits to the nurse and if the (not very funny) things David said made him laugh and invade David's personal space, well, that was nice.

(Like that time when it turned out David Hernandez was a stripper.

The news had trickled down to the finalists from the hushed mutterings of the crew. No one was outraged — this was _Hollywood_, after all — but there were futile attempts by Brooke to not have David learn that a guy he hung out with danced naked in bars for other guys.

"I knew that," David said, while Brooke groaned loudly and shook her head. "He used to help me with the steps of the group songs."

"What?"

He blinked at the sudden silence in the rehearsal room. "Um. He told me to bend my knees a bit more and not worry too much about following the choreography perfectly. He was really nice about it." He sang _dancing through life, skimming the surface_ softly and picked up his pencil again.

There were some scuffling noises, and the door slammed. He looked up. Everybody was gone except for Brooke, who was biting her lip like she was restraining herself from doing something.

"Where's everybody?" he asked her.

Brooke waved a hand limply, not quite looking at him. "Cook… needed some quiet time."

David thought he could hear the rise and fall of Cook's _C, C, C_ in the distance almost like it was being huffed into his ear.)

(Or the time they had Michael Johns' goodbye dinner.

Cook laughed the loudest and the longest of everybody during the entire night, but when he thought no one was looking, he'd press the heel of his hand to his forehead and scrub furiously. David wanted to comfort him, but it seemed too much like a private pain, one he didn't have any right to intrude into. Anyway, Michael had already talked to him and his mouth was still twisted, so David didn't know what he could do to make Cook feel better.

David cleared his throat to Michael's drunken whooping, almost drenching his sleeve when he raised his glass.

"Michael Johns, you're so awesome and so funny—" Carly was shouting this is a roast, Archie, don't inflate his ego, "—and you know, you're old enough to be my little sister's dad. Um, not in a bad way, you're very nice—"

He never got to say the rest, because Cook doubled over, spilling into David's lap and spilling the rest of David's water. He barely heard Michael's "I'll get you for this, Archuleta!", torn between squirming away from Cook — there were fingers dangerously close to his extremely ticklish stomach — and leaning into his warmth.)

(Or, really, any time David said anything and Cook was within hearing distance. Cook was a weird guy.)

But even stranger than David being a human Cook-stand was David touching Cook back, but David _did_, first because standing there, arms hanging at the sides, while Cook had an arm slung across his shoulders felt like a rude thing to do, and David was taught to be polite to everybody.

Then he touched back because Cook was sometimes too loud, too all over the place, too _David Cook_ and a solid punch to the arm was the best way to get his attention. Though the first time he tried that? Cook told him he was such a liar, which, um, huh? (Not a lie: having to study trigonometry while everybody else fooled around the basketball court on the set of the Ford commercial. Half a lie: "Aw, it's okay. I'm no good at sports. You guys have fun.") Then Cook somehow got a football from somebody and asked permission from his dad to drag David outside during a lull in finale rehearsals.

"Throw it," Cook yelled out. Not even his sunglasses and the stretch of parking lot between them could hide the giddiness in his grin.

"At you?" David asked. There was a long pause. "Right."

He braced his knees and heaved. The ball flew towards Cook in a neat arc, then smacked him squarely on the face.

David immediately sprinted towards him, babbling, "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, did I hurt you? I didn't mean to— do you want me to get someone?" Cook was bent at the waist, his face covered by both hands. "Do you need ice? A Band-Aid? Um, a neck brace? It might be a concussion. Is it a, you know, a concussion?"

He laid a hand Cook's shoulder tentatively. The other man was shaking all over. _I broke him_, David thought miserably.

Then Cook straightened, stood up and lowered his arms, and his face wasn't the bloody mess David had imagined it to be. He was grinning, wider and brighter than David had ever seen, and he lifted David and spun him around, laughing like a total maniac.

_Brain damage_, David decided with a resigned kind of panic, and started digging his elbow into Cook's side to get him to put him down, please, his shirt was riding up and his whiteness was _showing_.

Then he touched back because it became a habit, like how he fidgeted with his sleeves in the studio when recording wasn't going well, or sang along to whatever song was playing on the radio, except for the lyrics that were inappropriate.

It was natural for his arm to loop around Cook's waist when they were squished together for photographs. It was easy to press his face against Cook's shoulder on the drive back to the Idol compound after a long day at the studios. It fit almost perfectly, the way his hand splayed on the expanse of Cook's back while glittery confetti caught on his lips mouthing _he's awesome_ to Cook's mom.

Cook became comfortable, a constant, and with Cook's foot nudging his under tables during the endless press obligations, David never even had to say a lot, scramble for words that tended to fail him and come up short. Because Cook could look at him, and just _know_ and be the voice that he didn't have.

  
Everybody in the CNN dressing room was talking at each other above the din of blow dryers and high-heeled shoes. David had finished his turn with a make-up artist and had been moved towards a corner of the room. He didn't mind; years at Star Search taught him how to sit still, keep to himself and scratch at his nose without messing up carefully-applied foundation.

Still, there were chemistry problems that needed to be answered. He dug out his notebook from his backpack, opened it to the right page and his handwriting kind of blurred in front of him. Freaky. No balancing equations tonight, then. He'll tell his teacher later, Wendy would understand.

"Worried?" Cook asked, suddenly right there beside him, and David would've dropped the notebook if he wasn't already used to Cook being stealthy and sneaking up on people.

"No," he replied. "Larry King's super nice," he'd shaken David's hand and he reminded him of David's grandpa, except Larry King could speak English and David didn't have to resort to charades to get a conversation going, "and I'm getting better at the interviews thing. I hope."

In response, Cook wordlessly placed a hand on David's knee, which was, oh, jiggling up and down. Dang it. He ducked his head and licked his lips.

"Something you want to share with the class, Archie?" Cook's voice was low and unbearably kind. David didn't even have to look up to guess what Cook looked like; he saw it a lot during the last, desperate days leading up to the final two shows, when David couldn't memorize his two new songs _and_ the coronation song _and_ all the group numbers _and_ the two duets _and_ Spanish verbs and Cook sang Hero to him so much that he eventually had to consciously stop himself from singing it like Cook did.

David wished he'd never feel that helpless ever again.

Finally, he said, "My dad. They're going to ask me about him and I can't stand it anymore," and he laughed a little, and it sounded weird to his own ears, like it didn't have any joy in it. He never laughed like that before. "Even some people back home were calling about it. I don't know, can't I make a sign saying he's a good dad so I won't have to, people won't keep asking?"

"I've got a Sharpie and bond paper. Let's do it," Cook promptly said, and David giggled, a little shakily, but at least his throat wasn't numb as it had been moments ago.

Cook added, "Seriously, man, you know we'll do our best to fight the tabloid trash," and David started to say, "No, you don't have to, really," but Cook caught his flailing hand with his own and held it, palms facing, curling his fingers so the tips with their callouses brushed David's knuckles, and David shut up.

"I'm the _American Idol_. What's the use of all the fame and glory if I can't do even that?"

David looked Cook in the eye, said, "I wouldn't know. I'm hanging out with the guy who stole the title from me," and Cook laughed, which made David feel good, because, hey, that was something he intended to be funny, and Cook didn't let go of his hand, but held on tighter, which was even better.


End file.
